The Los Alamitos Unified School District has scheduled a series of community outreach meetings to solicit feedback on draft maps of school board trustee election areas. A professional demography firm hired by the District is preparing the maps, which will be posted on the District website by November 1.
Here is the schedule and location of the community outreach meetings:
- Mon., Nov. 4, 6:30 PM, Rush Park in Rossmoor.
- Tues., Nov. 5, 2:00 PM, Clubhouse 3 Rm. 2 in Leisure World.
- Tues., Nov. 5, 6:30 PM, McGaugh Elementary auditorium in Seal Beach.
- Wed., Nov. 6, 6:30 PM, District Office Board Room in Los Alamitos.
In addition, the District had already scheduled two formal public hearings on the draft maps at the District Office Board Room on November 12 and December 10. The hearings will be held during the regular Board meetings which begin at 6:30 PM.
Community members can also submit comment by email at trusteeareaelection@losal.org
The Board of Education will consider public input from the outreach meetings and the formal hearings before voting on a final map of trustee-area boundaries by January 2020. The county and state must also approve the maps before they go into effect for the November 2020 election.
The Los Alamitos Unified Board of Education is moving to a trustee-area voting system because the California Voting Rights Act strongly discourages the current at-large system. Dividing the school district into trustee areas helps ensure that minority group voting rights in the community are protected and not abridged or diluted, according to the statute. Most California cities, school districts and public agencies have converted, or are in the process of converting, to area-based voting. Some school districts and public agencies have been sued for not shifting away from at-large voting. In each case, the public agency has lost and been forced to pay steep legal costs with money that, in the case of schools, would otherwise support students and instruction.
More information about the process of shifting to the trustee-area system, including frequently asked questions and a timeline for implementation, can be found at www.losal.org/Voting.
